When the clock strikes
by SerenePhenix
Summary: Three tales of inevitable death. Three different illnesses. Three ways of looking at it. Three stories to be told.
1. IN

_Three chapters dealing with illness: each from another angle; from another person's view. Do not expect a happy-ending for there is none._

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Chapter 1 – Whitebeard and Nakama

**IN**

The words announced are nothing he would not have expected. He was growing old, his body was past its prime but his strength remained that of a titan.

"Oyaji… You are…", his son's voice gets caught in his throat for a moment and he coughs to make it waver less. The attempt at regaining at least some of his composure fails miserably. If he didn't know better it could have been him giving the man a devastating diagnosis.

"You are ill."

He can't help but laugh as he tells his poor son that of course he is ill. It is the very reason he asked him to run some tests on him although it is what he despises the most. He can no longer ignore the fatigue and the chest pains as well as the pressure he feels in his abdomen at times.

Tears gather in his boy's eyes as he stares at him, blinking rapidly, snuffling. He hasn't changed much. He still hates to see people be sick and miserable. He may have grown but he is still that same timid little boy they had found acast on the wide ocean he and his crew love with all their hearts.

They had given the orphan a home and he had become one of their best doctors as a sign of his gratitude, never wanting to disappoint any of them. The one disappointed the most today must be he himself though – so much knowledge and mastery and yet it seems as though it is useless.

His eyes stare at him pleadingly, as though telling him that as a legend he could not be subdued by time and mortal illness. Whitebeard wants to believe in it himself but he knows that he is fooling no one, even less himself.

"The thing is… you have cancer.", his doctor says and goes very quiet as if he regretted his words, probably wishing he could take them back, making them void of meaning this way.

As much as he loves his son he cannot stand it if he only gets half of what he wants (to know) so he asks a bit more harshly just what exactly that means – for his life, his lifestyle, his crew, his family, for the fights lying ahead.

It's only natural he is concerned about these things. Strong he might be but if this were to affect his ability to fend of foes than it was not only his problem.

His son shrinks back slightly, clutching the sheets with his results a little harder until the paper crinkles. The lad's hands are shaking so badly that he is sure that whatever he is about to hear is not in the least good.

"You have two. Lung cancer as well as liver metastasis.", he states after swallowing a few times, trying to be as professional as possible but unable to carry on with this mannerism as he starts snuffling even harder and more tears gather in his eyes.

Whitebeard is aware of these illnesses, aware of the fact that they indeed are fatal, that they indeed are something many good men succumb to, that some on the other hand live with it many, many years without showing that death's scythe is dangling an inch above their necks.

That still does not help him understand just what it will mean for him and so without a shred of fear he asks. What it is exactly, what exactly is the cause of it.

His son takes a very deep breath, it is now that he notices how much older he looks in that one moment.

"The primary cause for the lung cancer was excessive smoking in your younger years coupled with some of your chest wounds and resulting scar tissue that might have encouraged the tumor cells."

He just nods for it is true that he used to smoke, although he has not done so in a while. Drinking had mostly become his new relish and he is not about to change that. What his battle-scars do have to do with it still escapes him to some extent for he cannot see the immediate connection.

"The cancer in your lungs spread and infested your liver which must have been cirrhotic already for a few years."

His son's voice quivers. He is hurting far more than his patient himself. Whitebeard can't shake the feeling that it is because he knows the implications, all the bad things awaiting him and can see in those helpless eyes the wish of being able to cure these ailments, to make them go away.

But the man is about to break as he seems to have realized something Whitebeard himself will need some time to wrap his mind around. He has not broken because he is blissfully ignorant, unaware of the trials ahead. His lack of knowledge gives him a sense of hope.

Still he must ask if there is something that can be done.

His son laughs hoarsely. It is the sound of a desperate soul that sees no light in the darkness.

"There is nothing we can do. Terminal.", this time the boy does not hold back his sobs. He does not have the strength to try and hold up a strong front even if his father is in front of him and expects him to act tough, which actually is not the case.

He can see the boy crumbling in front of him. He is so young compared to him and yet he cries over an old man, who has had a long and very fulfilled life he can look back on. He waved him nearer and his son obliges. Death hurts and he can still remember his boy's face after a failed attempt at saving one of his heavily wounded brothers and sisters.

He had consoled him afterwards every single time. He just hopes that he being the cause of the distress will not change anything about that.

But there is nothing he can do to help his son feeling better. His son differently from him knows what it means and knows what it entrails and in his heart there is no hope left because he knows too much.

He knows the pains will become so intense at times that his father-figure will be unable to breathe, he knows that he will be suffering from even more exhaustion and lack of strength (even though his father is too prideful to admit it), he is aware that soon his father's life will depend on medicines and the right care, is aware of the up and downs, the mood swings, the sudden drop in health that is only a few months away. If his father is lucky he still might have one or two years to live.

The thing is only: Will it be a life for him, hooked up to machines and taking pills and fluids which will not be able to cure him but only to ease the pain? Will it still be a life worth living, knowing that if push came to shove, his father might be bed-ridden, unable to move, unable to protect what he cherishes most?

Will it be a life that will give him enough will to still want to remain on this earth?

That is the answer he is not able to give anyone and so he cries in his father's embrace, accepting the very possibility that what may come at them is the painful and slow decay of the man that saved his and his brother's lives.

Whitebeard does not know of this. It gives him hope and that's why his son will not take it away from him by revealing the ugly truth in its entity.


	2. LOVING

Chapter 2 – Roger and Crocus

**LOVING**

"Leave me alone!"

I duck as our latest pillage is thrown at my face and I can feel blood rushing in my ears, not from fear but from pure, long suppressed anger. Anger at the man I admire. The man in front of me, behaving like a stupid, egocentric, egoistic, unruly child so much unlike the person that I came to respect and that I wished to follow down to the ends of hell itself.

"I shall not, Roger!", I scream, having lost all of my calm by now. He infuriates me, a little more each day and I loathe myself for it since I know it is not his fault. It never was. It was no ones.

His dark eyes glare at me. It is so unlike him but I have gotten used to that image, of those fierce eyes looking at me as though I was his personal tormentor who did it out of pleasure, who just wanted to see him scream and cry until his voice is hoarse and his dignity shattered.

I do not want that. I never wanted that. Not for him, for the man who is my captain.

He pants and gasps until his chest hurts so much he can't keep his balance anymore and tumbles to the ground, obviously in pain.

Instantly hot fury is replaced by a sense of dread, by heavy guilt, by choking concern.

I kneel at his side ready to help him get up but he swats away my hand, shuts me out as though I were a stranger, not his doctor, _his nakama_, taking care of him.

"Go away…", he pleads and it is not the first time he does so. It always tears at my heart.

He is so brave and strong even during those days when he is barely able to walk, when he can barely breath without feeling like he is being stabbed in the chest multiple times.

But his bravado does not help me in his treatment for he comes to me only when he is at his lowest, at his rawest, at his most vicious. And even those visits grow rarer and it is now up to me to regularly check on him and he despises it for it gives him a feeling of having lost control, of having lost his privileges as a free man of the sea.

He hates it and I know it but sadly I cannot change it. I can only support him, if only he'd let me.

Despite the glower in his eyes, despite his protests and his curses I heave him up and drag him to his bed to examine him.

And he becomes unresponsive, not because he is unconscious but by choice. He thinks he is so clever. That by ignoring me, he will win this game, will get me to grow bored and leave him alone.

He never once won. It is not a question of growing bored, it is a question of what will happen if I do not take care of him, check on him and make sure he is still functioning.

He makes it as hard as possible and it makes me want to punch him, holler at him for being such a stupid, ungrateful ass.

There is nothing to lose anymore – no pride, no image to be upheld (in front of me at least). Nothing but his life. A life which I try to save but which grows to become an increasingly aggravating task with each day he gives me the same treatment.

I hate him for it at times. But the one I hate most is myself.

Because I know _what_ is hurting him, how much _I_ am hurting him and his pride and because there is _nothing_ that I can do to change that.

Finally we are done and I turn to leave him, let the medication work and bid him a good night. He does not respond, he never does but come morning he will be looking for me, then stand by my side for a moment and give me that look.

That one look conveying how very ashamed, how very sorry he is, yet can't promise that it won't happen again for he is so very, very tired.

And I just look back, because I am too.


	3. MEMORY

Chapter 3 – Bachina and Usopp

**MEMORY**

Fear.

Usopp has known it for as long as he can remember. It was at first not some silly fear of spiders crawling the dark corners of a house, nor the fear of thunder and storms.

The fear Usopp was subjected to was the fear of being left behind and alone, unable to do anything against it.

The fear of being unable to one day walk up to his mother's bedside and tell her another story about what he had done today, about how many pirates he had driven away all by himself to save the villagers.

Usopp was only seven and he already was confronted with the possibility that every day could his mother's last.

What he feared most was that despite everything he did to make her smile and feel better that it never was enough. He feared to admit that whatever he tried would not make his mother feel better.

He wanted to help her so badly. Seeing his mother in a bed, panting, then suddenly stopping, him running to the doctor, screaming at the top of his lungs, guiding them to his home, watching as they brought her back to him. It left him empty and tired and far more hopeless than was good for a child so young.

The doctor and nurse would tell him he did well; the villagers would try to be nice and understanding.

What few of them did understand though was how much it was killing him at the inside to watch how his mother - instead of growing healthier - deteriorate a little more each day.

Those warm round cheeks sunk in. Those bright twinkling eyes dulled a little more each day in their sockets. That once smooth and well-kept hair became brittle and thin. Her once red lips slowly turned a colorless grey. Her once strong arms, which had lifted him up and cradled him in a loving embrace, were now so weak they could not even hold a simple glass of water without shaking uncontrollably.

And he could not change it. He did not know how, otherwise he would have turned this whole world upside down to get the cure.

But he was just a kid with no power and no knowledge.

And so when evening rolled by and his mother was too exhausted to stay awake to talk to him or delirious with a fever he had learned to relieve her from with a cold rag, he simply sat there and cried.

Cried about how unfair it was, cried because it hurt, cried because he was afraid of the next day coming, afraid of again taking care and it not being enough. Cried because he knew the day where he would be alone was not that far away anymore. And he cried for his mother for he could see it in her eyes just how afraid she was too – for her only son, who she did not want to leave behind.

And the day she died, his world came crashing down.

All of their fears had become reality.

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**In loving memory of my dear person. ** **You brave warrior, who fought for life till the very end even in the face of adversary and death.**


End file.
